Cromford Mill

Cromford Mill

Cromford Mill
Location within Derbyshire
Cotton
Spinning Mill (Water frame)
Structural system	Stone
Owner	Arkwright
Construction
Built	1772
Employees	200
Floor count	5
Design team
Awards and prizes and listings	Grade 1 listed

Cromford Mill was the first water-powered cotton spinning mill developed by Richard Arkwright in 1771 in Cromford, Derbyshire, England, which laid the foundation of his fortune and was quickly copied by mills in Lancashire, Germany and the United States. It forms the centre piece of the Derwent Valley Mills, now a World Heritage Site.

History

Following the invention of the flying shuttle for weaving cotton in 1733 the demand for spun cotton increased enormously in England. Machines for carding and spinning had already been developed but were inefficient and the cotton produced was of insufficient quality to form the warp of a fabric. In 1769, Arkwright patented a water frame to use the extra power of a water mill after he had set up a horse powered mill in Nottingham.

He chose the site at Cromford because it had year-round supply of warm water from the Cromford Sough which drained water from nearby Wirksworth lead mines, together with Bonsall Brook. Here he built a five storey mill, with the backing of Jedediah Strutt, Samuel Need and John Smalley. Starting from 1772, he ran the mills day and night with two 12 h shifts.

He started with 200 workers, more than the locality could provide, so he built housing for them nearby, one of the first manufacturers to do so. Most of the employees were women and children, the youngest being only 7 years old. Later, the minimum age was raised to 10 and the children were given 6 h of education a week, so that they could do the record keeping that their illiterate parents could not.

Water frame

Initially the first stage of the process was hand carding, but in 1775 he took out a second patent for a water-powered carding machine and this led to increased output and the fame of his factory rapidly spread. He was soon building further mills on this site and others and eventually employed 1,000 workers at Cromford. Many other mills were built under licence, including mills in Lancashire, Scotland and Germany. Samuel Slater, an apprentice of Jedediah Strutt, took the secrets of Arkwright's machines to Lowell, Massachusetts, America, where he founded a cotton industry. But Arkwright's success led to his patents being challenged in court and his second patent was overturned as having no originality. But by the time of his death in 1792, he was the wealthiest untitled person in Britain.

The opening of the Cromford Canal 1793 linked Arkwright's Mill to the major Midland and Northern cities, although use of the canal was to decline as traffic moved onto the railways.

Gateway to Arkwright's Mill

The gate to Cromford Mill was shut at precisely 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day, and any worker who failed to get through it not only lost a day's pay but also was fined another day's pay. In 1779, Arkwright installed a cannon, loaded with grapeshot, just inside the factory gate , as a warning to would-be rioting textile workers, who had burned down another of his mills in Birkacre, Lancashire. The cannon was never used.

The cotton mill finally ceased operation in the nineteenth century and the buildings were used for other purposes, finally a dyeing plant. In 1979, the Grade I listed site was bought by the Arkwright Society who commenced the long task of restoring it to its original state.

The importance of this site is not that it was the first but that it was the first successful cotton spinning factory. It showed unequivocally the way ahead and was widely emulated.

Today, the mill is open to the public every day, and it attracts visitors from all over the world. Facilities include a visitors' centre, shops and a cafe. It is planned to stage a major exhibition with working machinery, with the addition of meeting rooms for educational groups, together with a library and a study centre.

The nearby Cromford Canal towpath to High Peak Junction, and onwards towards Ambergate, is listed as a Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Illustrations

The mill restoration in progress 2009

• 
  Existing three of five stories showing the extent of the original mill. Initially there was an undershot waterwheel to the right outside of the picture.
• 
  The mill as it is today. In 1785 the mill was extended to its present length with a culvert beneath for the Bonsall Brook. The sough was separated from the brook and brought from the village along the south side of Mill Lane which it crossed by way of the aqueduct to a new overshot wheel.
• 
  Close up of the culvert carrying the Bonsall Brook under the mill extension.
• 
  Close up of the mill showing the end of the aqueduct on the left and the hole in the wall where the wheel was located.
• 
  The foundations of the 1775 mill which was destroyed by fire in 1890, with wheel chamber on the right.
• 
  Weavers' housing, North Street, Cromford

The state of the mill in 1995

• 
  The original 1771 mill seen on the approach along Mill Road from the village. Originally two stories higher it had caught fire in 1929. To the right the aqueduct can just be seen fed from a channel running back to the village on the right.
• 
  The first mill viewed from the yard and the sorry state it was in. Access was forbidden at the time due to the presence of toxic paint ingredients..
• 
  A major problem for the restoration team in 1995 was this tank from the paint making and its toxic sediment. Somewhere beneath it is the foundations of the 1775 mill and the chamber for the breast shot waterwheel which had powered it..
• 
  The only remaining usable mill building in 1995, parts of it being presentable enough for guided tours. At the time work was in progress to replace many of the stone lintols and to replace the original Georgian windows. The single storey building was originally the full height but had been lost in the 1890 fire

The mill waterworks

• 
  A composite diagram of the watercourses. Originally the sough drained into the brook back in the village, and both powered the original mill. The sough was separated and brought along a channel on the south side of Mill Road to the aqueduct. Both then supplied the second mill. A complicated set of channels and sluices controlled the supply to the mill, or, on Sundays, the canal, with the surprus drained into the river.
• 
  The sluice in the mill yard used to control the water supply.
• 
  Location of the breastshot wheel for the 1775 mill
• 
  Cromford Pond built in 1785 as the mill pound.
• 
  This shuttle in the village, known locally as the "Bear Pit" controlled the water from the sough.

See also

• Masson Mill
• Cromford Canal
• Cromford Wharf

External links

• Arkwright Society - Cromford Mill - with tour information
• Cromford village website